This Is All (87 page)

‘Course.’

‘All great writers?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you know that none of them went to university?’

‘Well, I know Shakespeare didn’t, because you told us that the writers who were his rivals had been to university and were snide about him because he hadn’t and he was a better writer than they were.’

‘Correct.’

‘And I guess none of the others went to university either?’

‘Correct. Most of them never even went to school.’

‘Really?’

‘Take Virginia Woolf, for example.’

‘
Your
favourite.’

‘She never went to school and never went to university, though of course – naturally, what else? – her brothers did. Yet she’s one of the greatest English novelists, one of our greatest diarists and letter-writers, and what’s more, one of our greatest literary critics.’

‘So how did she do it?’

‘Well, for a start she was born into a very literary family. Her father supervised her studies. He also had a wonderful library so she was surrounded by the best of English lit. Everyone in the family read all the time. They used to sit and
read their books together every day. And they talked about what they were reading and wrote about it in their diaries and in letters to their friends. Got it? Virginia didn’t need to go to university because living with her family was like being in a university seminar every day.’

‘But I don’t live in a family like that.’

‘No. But you’ve had a reasonably good education at school.’

‘But I’ve still got a lot to learn.’

‘True. But what you need to understand is that literature isn’t a science. And studying it isn’t like studying a science. To be a scientist, you have to go to university or at any rate to work with experienced scientists, to learn from them. Scientists need special places to do their work and to learn about their subject. But the university of literature is literature itself. Studying literature means reading it, and reading the people who’ve written well about it. The real teachers of literature are the writers of the books you read. Yes, you do need to talk about it, but you can do that with any thoughtful reader. So what I’m saying is, you already have all you need to study literature by yourself.’

‘And with a little help from a friend.’

‘You only have to ask. You see, dear Cordelia, what I fear is that you’ll go to uni to study literature, find it isn’t what you expected or what you want, and be disheartened or even put off altogether. I’ve seen it happen to other people I’ve taught.’

‘But how can I know till I try?’

‘Good point.’

‘And the answer is?’

‘There isn’t one. It’s a catch twenty-two. You can’t know till you try but when you try it’s too late.’

‘So what should I do? If I don’t go to uni, I’ll have to get a job, and I don’t know anything I’d really like to do.’

‘If you want to go to uni for the sake of it and to give
yourself more time to decide how you want to earn your living, study something other than literature.’

‘Like what?’

‘Another language, perhaps. Your French isn’t bad. It’s important to be fluent in another language. And it would be useful for a career. There are plenty of openings for people with good language skills. Or you could do history, which you like.’

‘But I
want
to study literature. And even if it isn’t exactly what I want at uni, I could use a degree to get a good job, couldn’t I?’

‘Like what? Teaching English? Something in journalism? Become a librarian? Those are the usual jobs for people who have a degree in English and nothing else.’

‘I don’t think I’m cut out to be a teacher, do you?’

‘No, I don’t, to be honest. You’d be annoyed if the kids didn’t want to learn what you want to teach them.’

‘Being a librarian would be okay, but I’d want to read the books all the time.’

‘And it isn’t about books, mostly, these days. It’s about computers and management systems and dealing with the public, which you’re not too keen on.’

‘No. So no go as a librarian. And somehow I don’t see myself as a journalist, do you?’

‘No. Not a job for a would-be poet, and anyway you’re too fastidious and too much of a snob. You’d hate writing in newspaper style, and you’re not the type to pry into people’s lives.’

‘In other words, you think journalism is the pits.’

‘On the whole, I do.’

‘So who else is a snob?’

‘Birds of a feather, ducky.’

‘Well, then, I haven’t a clue what to do.’

‘Why not do this? Apply for a place at university. The experience of going through the hoops will be useful. That will
give you time to think more about it. You needn’t take up the place when the time comes if you don’t want to. How about that?’

‘Sounds good. Thanks, Julie, thanks so much. I’m sorry to be such a bore.’

‘You’re not.’

‘Well, thanks anyway.’

Violence

My heart and my mind throb with panic.

It seems to me that in life-or-death crises people either shut down as if hypnotised and unconsciously submit to their fate, or find resources within themselves and just as unconsciously – I mean without conscious thought in words they are aware of – conjure a way out of their predicament.

For a despairing moment, I’m about to give in, but as Cal approaches, naked and erect, something deep inside takes hold of me, I don’t know what, something perhaps as basic, as primitive, as the urge to live rather than die, and I hear myself say with a firmness, a command, that surprises me as much as Cal, ‘Wait! We can’t! Not yet!’

He stops, and says, ‘Why? What for?’

‘We can’t,’ I say, still not knowing what I’m doing. ‘We just can’t.’

Cal takes another step towards me. I scramble off the other side of the bed. He stops again.

‘We can’t just die and leave nothing behind.’

‘Like what?’

‘Something so people will know.’

‘Know what?’

‘What we’ve done. Why we’re dead.’

‘Who cares? I don’t give a fuck.’

He comes round the bed. I scramble over it.

‘I care. My father. My aunt. They’ll care. Arry will care. He’s your friend, isn’t he? Don’t you care about him? After all he’s done for you. What’ll he think?’

Cal throws the rope onto the bed and is preparing to chase me.

I say quickly, ‘Let me write them a note. We can leave it for them beside our bodies. I’ll explain. We died for love. Then I’ll do what you want. I’ll help you. But if you don’t, I’ll fight you. I won’t give in. It’ll not be the way you want. It’ll be rape. And murder. Rape and murder. Is that what you are? A rapist and a murderer? Is that what you want people to think? That you raped me and murdered me. That you’re just a common rotten ugly rapist and murderer.’

He’s staring at me, uncertain.

‘You say you love me. Is that what you mean by love? Well, is it?’

He comes round the bed. I don’t move, don’t try to get away from him.

He takes me by the shoulders.

‘Right,’ he says. ‘Give us a kiss to prove it.’ He laughs. ‘Seal it with a loving kiss.’

‘No,’ I say. ‘I won’t. Nothing, till you let me write a note.’

He smiles and drops his hands. Then with a terrible suddenness he strikes me across the face so hard with the flat of his hand that it sends me spinning to the floor. I feel the shock of the blow but not the pain.

‘How’s that for a kiss?’ he says, standing over me. ‘Like it, did you? There’s more where that come from if you don’t behave yourself.’

He grabs my arm and hauls me to my feet.

Now the pain hits me. It’s so acute my legs give way and I collapse to the ground again as if from a second blow. I taste blood in my mouth and feel the side of my face swelling and my eye closing.

‘Get up,’ Cal says. ‘It wasn’t that bad.’

But I can’t. I don’t even try.

‘Anyway,’ he says, ‘there’s nothing to write with.’

‘My bag,’ I say. The words sound the way they do after Novocaine at the dentist’s. ‘In the van.’

He doesn’t move.

I can see he’s thinking it over. If I wait too long he’ll refuse.

‘I’ll get it,’ I say and somehow make myself stand up.

‘No.’ He goes to the door.

‘And I’ll need my glasses.’

He stops and turns, smiling again. ‘Bloody nuisance, you are,’ he says. ‘More trouble than you’re worth.’

‘Love’s always costly,’ I hear myself reply.

‘Least I’m not paying for it this time. That’s a nice change.’

He turns away and opens the door enough for him to edge through.

I know this is what I’ve been unconsciously aiming for and that it’s my only chance.

Please
, I pray,
please don’t let him close the door, let him leave it open
.

He goes out. And doesn’t close the door after him.

Thank you, thank you!

I wait, force myself to wait, till I hear him open the van door. And then I run.

Through the door and past him as he leans into the van, my bare feet soundless.

The lane is a blurred dappled tunnel through the trees in the moonlight. I run along the grassy middle.

I hear Cal yell, ‘
No!
’ an angry howl.

He’ll be coming after me, but I can’t hear him and know I mustn’t look back in case I trip and fall.

I run as never before, truly running for my life.

And then my memory is confused.

Lights coming towards me fast, bouncing, bobbing. The sound of a speeding car. Both are hazy because my bruised eye has closed and I don’t have my glasses on and I’m panting so hard.

And then the weight of Cal falling on me, hurling me to the ground (I remember the cold wetness of the grass on my face), squashing the breath out of me, and him pinning me down and punching me viciously on the back again and again. And the lights and the engine noise blinding and deafening and stopping almost on top of me. And the weight of Cal leaving me. And my father shouting. And Arry’s voice saying my name.

And then nothing.

>>
Will
>>

Will

I only know from Dad and Arry what happened during the twenty-four hours after they rescued me. I seem to have collapsed into a waking coma and I don’t remember anything of that time.

As they drive up the lane, Dad and Arry see me picked out by the headlights running towards them, naked, waving, screaming, with Cal pounding along behind, catching me up and flooring me with a rugby tackle just as Dad skids to a stop a metre or two from us. Cal is so fixated on me he seems unaware of the car or of Dad and Arry storming out of it, until Dad grabs him round the neck and hauls him off me. Then he seems to take in what’s happening and attacks Dad, smashing a fist into his face, kicking his leg and punching him in the stomach, which floors him. He’s turning to attack me again but Arry throws himself between us and hangs onto Cal until Dad, recovering enough breath and strength, hurls himself at Cal again, flailing at him and shouting at Arry to call the police. This seems to be enough for Cal, who breaks free and sprints off down the lane towards the barn. Dad tries to give chase, though one leg is badly hurt and he’s gasping for breath. But by the time he reaches the barn, Cal has disappeared into the trees. It would be difficult to find
him in the dark and Dad is afraid that if he tries, Cal might circle back and grab me and use the car to get away. So he limps back to find that Arry has got me into the back seat of the car. They cover me with the blanket they brought with them and Arry climbs in beside me, his arm round me, holding me to him.

While Arry helps me to drink some water Dad asks me what happened, whether Cal has ‘done anything’ and if I’m hurt. I keep saying I’m all right but they can get nothing else out of me. Dad says he’ll call the police but I become so agitated, saying no no, he mustn’t, he mustn’t, that Dad says he won’t but that he’d better take me to hospital to be checked over. And again I’m vehement. Take me home, just take me home, I plead, please, please.

Dad gives in and phones Doris to let her know they’ve found me and are on the way back. He gets out of the car to do this so that I won’t hear him also telling her what happened when they got here and the state I’m in and to call our doctor, a good client and friend of Dad’s, to ask him to come to the house and examine me.

That done, he has the presence of mind to drive to the barn and disable Cal’s van so that he won’t be able to use it, to retrieve my backpack, and to check the inside of the barn for anything that might be useful as evidence or information, because he means to get on to the police after he’s taken me home.

On the journey home I fall asleep. But it’s more than sleep, it’s some kind of collapse, because when we arrive they can’t wake me and have to carry me to my room. The doctor comes. He examines me but apart from some bruises to my face and back and the cuts on my thigh (which they don’t know weren’t caused by Cal) he can find no serious injury or any signs that I’ve been sexually assaulted (which is the thing they are really worried about). He says my collapse is normal after a trauma of the kind they guess I’ve been
through, and advises that the best treatment is rest in bed till I’m conscious again and recovered enough to talk. If this doesn’t happen in the next twenty-four hours, he’ll have to send me to hospital for treatment and tests. He’ll call again tomorrow (today by now, as it’s 3.30 a.m.).

Doris and Julie give me a bed bath and agree to Julie’s suggestion to take turns sitting with me till I come to, Doris first, while Julie goes home to collect clean clothes, her toiletries, and some work to do when she relieves Doris for the 4 till 8 a.m. vigil.

I’m unconscious till late in the evening of that day. When I wake I don’t know where I am at first, then think I’m still in the barn, at which I sit bolt upright and scream, and find both Doris and Julie instantly beside me, Doris holding me round the shoulders, Julie holding my hands. The relief when I realise they are with me and I’m in my room is so overwhelming that I begin to sob uncontrollably. They comfort me till I quieten down.

My memory of the next few hours is hazy. I remember that as soon as I’d calmed down I couldn’t wait to get into the shower, desperate to clean myself of Cal and the barn, but I was so shaky I could hardly stand and Julie had to be with me to make sure I didn’t fall and injure myself. Doris made scrambled egg for me to eat in bed. When I’d finished we were joined by Arry and Dad, who coaxed me to tell what had happened. By the time I’d done that and answered their questions I conked out and fell asleep. I didn’t wake till nearly twelve next day. Julie was still there. She’d slept beside me that night, and was reading in my chair by the window when I woke. Again, it was a relief to find her there. She didn’t mention the trauma, but treated me as normal, was matter-of-fact and neither falsely cheerful or solicitous, and while I ate a brunch she told me about the book she was reading, and read me passages aloud, which was as restorative as the meal.